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Kekele was a band formed in 2000, composed of leading veteran African musicians, mostly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They played Congolese rumba in a revival style harkening back to the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, using acoustic guitars.
The African-record producer Ibrahim Sylla formed Kekele in 2000 to record its first album, Rumba Congo. According to one report, the band was originally intended as a “one-off” effort, only meant to exist for that one album. The word kekele in the Lingala language means a type of fibrous vine, sometimes woven together to make rope. One writer speculated that this is a metaphor for the musicians who comprise the band.
The band's inspiring spirit was a dissatisfaction with the direction Congolese popular music had recently taken, and a desire to return to its roots. As Kekele guitarist Syran Mbenza said, "There were no more songs, no more melodies. . . . Our music was becoming decadent. We had to wake it up again."
As an effort by a group of older musicians to revive an older style of music, many writers compared this group's work to the Buena Vista Social Club, the 1990s Havana band and album. Perhaps along similar lines to the Buena Vista Social Club, Kekele seems aimed at a largely non-African target audience; Martin Sinnock, a U.K. expert in Congolese music, described Kekele's first album as "the most popular Congolese release of 2001" -- among those "utside the African community," because African fans of Congolese music were more interested in other musicians such as Koffi Olomide.
As Kekele has recorded and toured, its membership, the ten to twenty musicians in the studio or on stage, has regularly changed. Each lineup, however, has consistently been an all-star cast of experienced musicians, most from the Democratic Republic of the Congo but some from elsewhere in Africa.
The consistent core members of Kekele include vocalists Nyboma (Nyboma Mwan’dido), Wuta Mayi, Bumba Massa, and Loko ‘Djeskain’ Massengo, and guitarist Syran Mbenza. Loko ‘Djeskain’ Massengo is from the Republic of the Congo, while the other four are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and all were between age 50 and 55 in 2001. These five core members of Kekele include three of the four "stars" who comprised the supergroup Les Quatre Etoiles (The Four Stars): Nyboma, Wuta Mayi, and Syran Mbenza.
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